


Pushing Through to the Other Side

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Series: Take Me Anywhere [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Loki, Recovery, waffles fix things fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21779836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: The days after the Chitauri attack are kind of a blur, and it takes a bit for Clint to remember to be worried about Jason and whether he and Chris and Elle survived. When he does remember, it's not as easy as just calling to check on them.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Series: Take Me Anywhere [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/617815
Comments: 11
Kudos: 82





	Pushing Through to the Other Side

Clint spent two nights after shawarma with Captain America in SHEILD medical, with tests and headaches and concussion protocol and adrenaline shakes and a complete inability to stay asleep, followed by his doctor looking at Fury with a shrug and saying, “We can’t find any traces of foreign substances or influence.”

Then it was twelve hours in Tony Stark’s tower thinking Phil was dead and nearly shaking apart on a couch, until Fury was able to stroll in with Phil in tow. Phil had experimented with Tony’s tech and hadn’t really died, and could they please get on with forgiving Nick because there was shit to take care of now that Earth had survived its first open alien invasion.

Clint had actually been only half awake for that bit, enough to catch that Phil was alive and hold his hand out as Phil sank down on the very plush couch Clint was dozing on and enjoy the feel of Phil running his other hand through Clint’s hair and down his cheek.

Phil looked at Nick and said, “We’re going home first and sleeping for a few days. Then we’ll be ready to work, but not right now.” Clint had nodded and Tony, Steve, and Bruce had stood there a bit slack-jawed when they realized that Phil had seriously meant Clint when he said ‘we’ in that proclamation.

Two hours later and Clint was asleep in his own bed with Phil stretched out beside him, and Natasha sleeping in the guest room down the hall.

Two hours after that and he was awake screaming again, and Natasha was handing Phil a glass of water and muttering, “He hasn’t slept more than two hours at a time yet.”

Phil sent her back to her room with a “you need rest, too. I’ve got him for the night,” and she nodded, leaving after she pressed a kiss to Clint’s hair and whispered, “Not your fault.”

Two hours after that and he was awake screaming again, but this time it was just Phil brushing his damp hair out of his face and pulling Clint’s hand to his chest, saying, “Feel my heartbeat. I’m here because you all defeated Loki. It’s over. You’re safe.”

Clint was having trouble breathing, though, much less believing a word Phil was saying. He sucked in a few deep breaths and ran his hands through his hair and down his face. “Okay,” he said, just to get Phil to calm down, too. “I’m okay.” He blew a breath out slowly. “I’m going to take a shower. I feel gross and you need sleep, too.”

The water was hot, but it felt like he just couldn’t get clean. Every time he closed his eyes he was killing someone he knew, and he scrubbed harder and harder and then he couldn’t keep his eyes open, so he clenched them shut and saw another SHIELD agent he’d killed and another and another until he felt a hand on his arm and Phil was there, turning the water off and wrapping him in a towel.

“Clint, dammit,” he said, and he just leaned into him, letting Phil dry him off.

It was a shitty night. The next morning, he sat at their small, round kitchen table and drank coffee until Phil stumbled out a few hours later and said, “SHIELD Medical called, and they need to run some more tests.”

That turned into a shitty day, although the bright side was definitely that there didn’t seem to be any trace of Loki or weird staff magic left in Clint’s body or brain, according to the scans. He and Phil stopped to fill out some paperwork, but then they headed back home, and Clint collapsed on the couch.

Phil brought him a glass of water and some aspirin. “Natasha’s crashing at her place tonight but said to call if we need to.”

Clint swallowed the pills and stared at the ceiling. “Okay.” His brain was buzzing like he’d had ten cups of coffee and his body felt like it was covered in bricks. He and Phil sat quietly for a few minutes before Clint thought of something and sat straight up. “Oh, shit. Phil,” he said, and he dug through his pockets for his phone. “Fuck,” he muttered, and he felt his heart rate jump, and his hands started to shake. “Fuck,” he said again as he tried to open his contacts.

“Clint, what’s wrong,” Phil asked.

Clint couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking. He looked up at Phil. “Jason. Chris. Elle. Are they okay?” he asked, and then he looked down at his phone again. His fucking fingers weren’t working.

Phil took Clint’s phone and set it aside, where Clint couldn’t reach it and took his own out. “I’ll call them. You shouldn’t,” he said.

Clint blinked. “In case they’re dead.”

Phil didn’t say anything, just dialed their number.

Clint held his head in his hands and listened and tried not to squeeze too hard.

“Chris,” Phil said, relief flooding his voice, and Clint shut his eyes. “We wanted to make sure the three of you were safe.” There was a pause, and then, “Thank goodness you’re all safe and your neighborhood made it through the chaos.”

Clint exhaled long and hard and all he could think about was Jason being safe. If he hadn’t been, well, he was walking pretty close to the fucking edge at the moment and losing Jason surely would’ve tipped him into the abyss. Phil was quiet on the line and Clint caught him sneak a look at Clint while he was listening, and something shifted in the air. Clint didn’t like it.

“Okay,” Phil said, finally. “It’s okay. We’re probably not up for much visiting, and we don’t know what’s going to be going on at SHIELD for the foreseeable future. We’ll stay in touch, though.”

Clint sat up straighter and couldn’t help saying, “No, no, no. Phil, I want to visit him, tell Chris we’ll be over.” His whole body was thrumming with a need to move, to go see, to make sure the young kid he’d long ago decided was his little brother was safe and alive and breathing, despite what Chris told Phil. He needed to brush his hands through Jason’s dark hair and buy him a hot chocolate and tell him he’d keep him safe from aliens the way he’d been keeping him safe since they met.

Phil hung up the phone with a pained look, and when he looked back at Clint he shifted, like he would block Clint’s movement if needed.

“What the hell is going on, Phil? They’re safe? I want to see Jason.”

Phil swallowed. “Clint. Jason’s okay, but their neighborhood was hit pretty hard. They weren’t home when it happened, but . . . Jason lost two of his best friends from school.”

Clint felt like he’d been stabbed. He sucked in a sharp breath. “He’s angry with us.” Of course. It made sense. Jason knew Clint and Phil were on the front lines for this sort of thing even if he didn’t know exactly what they did. Plus, there was the TV footage of the Avengers. If he saw that, then he saw Clint.

Phil shrugged. “Everyone’s scared, Clint. He’s not angry; he’s afraid, and if he’s like every other person in this city, he’s not sure who to blame.”

“I know who,” Clint muttered, and stood up. “I’m going to see him. I need to.”

Phil crossed his arms. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Chris said,”

“I don’t care what Chris said. I don’t care. I just . . . I need to, Phil, I need to see...” His heart was beating like a jackhammer in his chest and he had a lump in his throat he needed to swallow. Jason was safe. They should trust Chris. But every time he blinked, he imagined Jason lying in a pile of rubble and a fucking Chitauri standing over his body, Jason’s black hair over his face and blood running down his chin and onto his t-shirt covered chest.

Clint’s breathing sped up.

Phil pushed Clint down to the couch and sat down next to him. “Breathe with me, Clint. Slow it down. In for four,” he said, and led Clint through breathing until Clint could finally look at him and nod.

“Sorry,” Clint whispered.

Phil’s phone rang suddenly, startling both of them. “Hello?” he answered. He listened for a moment, and then, “I don’t know, Chris,” and he ran his hand over his face in exhaustion.

“Phil, please,” Clint said, and he reached for the phone.

Phil stood up, taking the phone with him. “He hasn’t slept since the fight, really. Some superficial physical injuries. He’s worried about Jason, though, so maybe, if Jason wants,”

“Phil,” Clint repeated, and he stood – too quickly as it turned out because the room spun around him. He blinked, swallowed, and tried to take a deep breath to stop it, but it didn’t work. His knees buckled and he landed back on the couch, hard. He shut his eyes and tried to breathe.

“Fuck,” Phil said. “Not right now, Chris. I have to go. I’ll call you back.”

The room wouldn’t stop spinning. Phil pushed Clint so he was laying down, and he gave him a cold washcloth to put on his forehead. “You need sleep, Clint. Medical gave me a prescription for,”

“No,” Clint muttered. “Sleep meds just mess me up, you know that.”

“Try,” Phil said, running his hand through Clint’s hair.

“No. Does Jason want to see us?” he asked.

“Chris said he heard us talking on the phone and asked if he could talk to you. I don’t know, though.”

“I want to see him.”

“Sleep first. You just about passed out and you look like warmed up garbage, Clint.”

Clint didn’t answer, just tried to regulate his breathing and feel the plush couch under him. The fabric against his skin was warm; the soft pillows were not going to let him fall. Images from the past week wormed their way into his brain. Giant Chitauri ships blasting the city to shreds, his own arrow piercing the chest of Peter, an agent Clint had worked with and met for coffee every Thursday they were both in town for the last ten years, Loki sweeping past him onto the helicarrier, Clint crashing through the window of a building in the middle of the New York battle and glass shards sinking into his skin.

He opened his eyes with a sharp breath, and Phil sat up groggily from the recliner he’d been napping in.

“Go back to sleep,” Clint whispered. “I’m okay.”

Phil gave him a sharp glare at that, but then he closed his eyes again. He was exhausted, too.

Clint went back to his bedroom, sat down on the bed, pulled out his phone, and dialed Jason’s number. Screw it. He was going to talk to his friend.

It rang for a while, and then Jason’s voice cracked as he answered, “Clint?”

Clint closed his eyes and swallowed thickly. He tried to talk, but his voice wouldn’t work. Images of Loki, of Chitauri, of Tony standing there saying, “Agent Coulson died,” of small, thirteen-year-old boys lying dead in the rubble of the city swirled around his brain and his voice wouldn’t work.

“Clint, are you there?”

Clint drew a shaky breath. “Jason,” he whispered. He sucked in another breath and tried again. “Are you okay?”

Jason was silent for a moment, and then he asked, “Are you?”

Clint couldn’t help the bitter laugh. “Not really, kid. I needed to hear your voice, though.”

“I saw you on the news,” Jason said, and there was something sad about his voice. “Fighting those things. Was Phil fighting, too?”

Clint screwed his eyes shut and thought of Loki’s spear again. He had to remind himself that Phil was safe, that it hadn’t really been him Loki pierced, that it had been Tony’s brilliant tech. “No. He had to miss that part. He fought before it, though.”

“Oh,” Jason said, and then there was silence. “Clint, I heard on the news that the aliens only came because of your team. Is that why they came?”

“No,” he whispered. “They came because of me.” Why he chose to confess this to Jason, who really didn’t need this burden, was beyond him, but the words just tumbled from his mouth like they needed to escape.

“I don’t understand,” Jason said, and this time there was a tremor in his voice. “Clint, I don’t understand.”

Clint shook his head. This had been a stupid idea, calling the kid. “I don’t either, Jason. I have to go. Hug Chris and Elle for me, ok?”

Jason protested. “Wait, Clint.”

But Clint hung up. He threw the phone on the bed and ducked into the bathroom, turned the water on hot, and climbed into the shower. It wasn’t until he looked down that he realized he’d left his clothes on. He didn’t care. He let the hot water drench him and he pressed his hands to the wall, like he could shove his way through and out of this fucking nightmare. He turned the water on hotter.

“Clint?”

He ignored Phil, just let the water pelt him with heat, turned the water on hotter and felt it scald his skin and pushed harder against the wall.

“Dammit, Clint,” Phil said, and he reached in and turned the water off.

Clint sunk to the floor and put his hands over his head, holding himself tightly.

“What happened?” Phil asked as he knelt down.

“I’m just really tired, Phil.”

“I know you are,” Phil said gently, and pulled Clint close, wet clothes and all. He wrapped him in a hug and held on tight. “Did you talk to Jason?” Phil asked after a minute.

Clint nodded. “I hung up on him,” he said, his voice muffled by Phil’s shirt. He didn’t want to let go, though.

Phil pulled back and put his hand on Clint’s cheek. “Why did you do that?”

Clint swallowed. “He said he heard that the Avengers caused the Chitauri attack and. . . fuck, Phil. I fucking let Loki in and I killed all those people and let him onto the carrier and . . .” and suddenly he couldn’t breathe again.

“Okay, okay,” Phil said, and he counted Clint through his breaths again until Clint was breathing normally. “I’m getting you the sleeping meds. You get your clothes changed, all right?”

“I . . .” he started.

“I know you hate them, and I know they might make you sick. That’s the trade off this time, Clint. _No one_ _knows_ when you last slept for any amount of time and I don’t want to have to take you back to SHIELD before you’re ready, so sleeping is the priority.” Phil sounded like he was talking about a mission, and maybe that was best, because Clint nodded instinctively and started to change clothes. Phil’s mission-voice was not to be trifled with, alien invasion or not.

When Clint took the pills, Phil guided him to their bed and climbed in next to him. He wrapped Clint up in his arms and said, “Sleep. I’ll be right here with you.”

He woke slowly, and the nausea in his belly was only manageable because of his slow, deep breaths. His muscles felt lighter; his eyes weren’t struggling to stay open and focused. He blinked at the sunlight streaming through the crack in the curtains and swallowed, trying again to settle his churning stomach. It didn’t work. He rolled out of bed, yanking his arm off of Phil’s hip, and stumbled to the bathroom.

By the time he finished throwing up, Phil was there, bleary eyed, holding a wet washcloth in one hand and a glass of water in the other. Clint took the washcloth and wiped his mouth. When he reached for the glass, he looked at Phil and shrugged. “Sorry for puking.”

Phil knelt down in front of him and brushed Clint’s hair off of his forehead. “We knew it was coming.”

Clint drank the water. “Still gross,” he said after. Memories flashed of safe house bathrooms and Phil holding SHIELD medical room basins for him.

Phil reached past him to flush the toilet. “You slept for nine hours. It’s worth it.”

Clint ran a hand through his hair. “How many times have you watched me throw up over the years, do you think?”

Phil smiled and answered, “Twenty-two. Twenty-three if you count Pittsburg.”

Clint blinked up at him. “Of course I count Pittsburg.”

Phil shrugged and stood up, reached down to help Clint up, and said, “Come on. Let’s get you some toast before your stomach has a chance to realize how empty it is now.”

Clint brushed his teeth and shuffled out to the kitchen, where Phil was buttering the toast. “Did you sleep for nine hours, too?” he asked, reaching into the fridge for some juice.

“Pretty close.”

Clint sat heavily down at the table and poured two glasses of apple juice as Phil set his plate down in front of him. Clint ate, and it didn’t taste like bricks, like everything he’d put in his mouth the last few days. The juice tasted so good that he drank it in one breath and poured himself another and drank it, too.

Phil just smiled at him and poured the third glass for him. “You’ve been dehydrated. Medical said to make sure you’re drinking a lot, too.”

“He didn’t let us stop,” Clint said. “I don’t think I ate more than a couple granola bars the whole time. I don’t remember drinking anything.” His hand suddenly shook so hard he sloshed juice out of the glass.

Phil reached over and took the glass.

Clint pulled in a deep breath. Something else. He needed to think of something else. He looked at Phil, really looked at him. His hair was mussed, and there were dark circles under his eyes, but his eyes were bright, and he was drinking juice and working on a full plate of eggs and toast.

“What?” Phil asked, looking up at Clint.

Clint shook his head. “You. I don’t know. You. I like seeing you.” What he wanted to say was ‘I thought you were dead, and I wasn’t going to survive that,’ but he didn’t. Putting those kinds of words out into the universe was just tempting fate.

Phil smiled, and he put his hand on Clint’s. “Yeah.” He sucked in a sharp breath and something in his face crumpled. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said, and his voice broke on the last word and his eyes filled with tears. “I did. I thought Loki’d stolen you and what the hell could we do against a god to get you back? I thought someone would have to shoot you and you’d be lost to me, Clint.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “After everything we’d been through. After all it took for you to find SHIELD and shape your life the way you did, Loki came along and in less than a minute he took you from me. From us.”

Clint moved and pulled Phil into his arms and wrapped him in a tight hug, and there was something about helping Phil through this moment that made Clint’s chest warm, like maybe if Phil needed him, too, then they both might get through this. “We both made it. We both made it and that’s important. Loki’s a fucking douche rocket and he’s fucking gone. He’s gone and we’re here.” He held on, and Phil shook in his arms. Clint had never once known Phil to cry.

He held on until Phil stopped shaking, pulled away, and sat back down at the table.

“Okay,” Phil said, wiping his eyes with his napkin, “Okay. Do you want some of my eggs?”

Clint grinned. “No. I still feel pretty gross, and you make your eggs too runny anyway.”

“I like them runny,” Phil muttered, getting up and heading to the stove.

After cleanup, after Phil grabbed a shower and Clint managed to keep the toast down and doze a little on the couch, Clint’s phone rang. “Jason,” Clint said.

“Elle says that all that destruction couldn’t have been caused by only one person, so this can’t be your fault, Clint. Also, can I come over there or can you come over here because I can tell something’s wrong and you probably won’t ask for help about it, and that’s stupid. We can make waffles.”

Clint held the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a second. This is not what he expected.

“Clint?”

Clint put the phone back to his ear. “I’m here. I, uh, I’m not feeling the best right now, so maybe we can meet for waffles tomorrow?” He was channeling Phil’s reasonable voice, clearly.

Jason wasn’t having it. “Clint. Today, please.”

“Hang on,” Clint said after a beat. “Phil?” he called out.

“Yeah?”

“Do we have waffle supplies?”

There was a pause. “Clint.”

“Phil. Do we have waffle supplies?”

“Yes.”

Clint couldn’t help his smile as he put the phone back to his ear. “Come on over, kid. Bring Chris and Elle, and maybe if you guys have any whipped cream we can always use more.”

Jason laughed, and Clint thought maybe his heart would explode at the sound. “Okay, Clint. We’ll bring whipped cream. We also have bananas. See you.”

“See you, kid.”

He sat up and stretched. “Jason and Chris and Elle are coming,” he called to Phil. When he said it, something settled in his bones, like they’d been misaligned and settled back into place. He couldn’t help his smile. “I’m gonna make waffles,” he said, and Phil wasn’t in the room, but it was like Clint was announcing it anyway, to the universe or something.

Phil came out from the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. “Are you sure you’re up for it?” he asked.

Clint shrugged and headed to the kitchen. “I’m gonna make waffles,” he repeated, and he didn’t really know more than that. Phil watched him pull the flour container out of the cupboard, nodded, and headed back to the bathroom to finish getting dressed.

An hour later, there was a knock on their door. Clint threw it open and Jason barreled in, wrapped Clint in a bear hug, and squeezed. Jason was getting big enough that it knocked the air from Clint for a second, and then he returned the hug, squeeze and all. “Hey, kiddo.” He looked up at Chris and Elle, and they were smiling at him like they kinda wanted to hug him, too. Elle leaned in and kissed Clint’s cheek while Jason still held him in a hug, and he couldn’t stop the tears from leaping to his eyes again. When Chris clapped his shoulder, the tears fell.

Jason squeezed tighter.

“I’m sorry,” Clint whispered. “I’m sorry your friends died, and I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it.”

“Clint,” Jason said, pulling back. “It was an alien spaceship. It was huge and there were, like five hundred little alien fighters. It doesn’t seem like it could be your fault.”

Holding Jason in his arms, seeing his black, wavy hair and green eyes again was more than Clint thought he’d ever get when he woke up after getting clocked by Natasha on the helicarrier, but he saw Jason lying in the rubble, too, bloody and lifeless because of him, and the room narrowed as he stood there.

“Clint,” Phil said, and put his hand on Clint’s cheek. “Look at me.”

Clint blinked and followed the order. Phil’s blue eyes gleamed back at him, and Clint pulled in a deep breath.

“Jason is okay. Look. He’s here and he’s okay,” Phil said, and apparently a couple of days was all it took him to learn to tell when Clint started to dissociate thanks to talking about Loki. “Look at him, Clint,” he said.

Clint did, and Jason was looking back at him with a steely resolve. “All of that couldn’t be your fault, Clint,” he said quietly.

Phil turned to Jason and said, “An alien used magic to take Clint’s body for a few days before the attack happened. Clint thinks it’s his fault because his _body_ helped the alien open the door for the alien attack. I’m still trying to convince Clint that it wasn’t him, that as soon as his body was free, he stood up and fought back, but it’s hard for him, you know? A lot of people died.”

Jason blinked, looked over at Chris and Elle, and then back to Clint. He leaned back in for another hug. “My body does shit I don’t want it to do sometimes, Clint, and there’s no magic involved. Magic sounds like it sucks.”

Clint couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah,” he said, “Magic definitely sucks. You know what doesn’t suck, though?”

“Waffles!” Jason laughed.

An hour later when they each had a waffle on a plate in front of them at the dining room table, Phil raised his glass of juice. “To our friends we lost,” he said, looking at Clint. “Because magic sucks.”

“And may they have delicious waffles wherever they ended up,” Jason added, and Clint laughed at the whipped cream smeared across his cheek.


End file.
